Tuesday, January 18, 2011

New York City with a blanket

Few cities in the world are more famous than the country they reside in, and among this small list only few of them are not a capital of their own country. I can only think of four major cities that are tag along this line: Sydney, Shanghai, Montreal and New York City (I am sure that there is more out there, but I am using these four as examples for my entry since I had a chance to visit them in my life). The communality of this four fantastic is that they all are (or were) a financial center of their country and an art reference of their own regionally if not globally. It is almost if by refusing political power, theses cities had to find another form of power to exist, and money and arts were the only two available.

Empire State Building

When traveling to one of the four fantastic, people often do not mention the country first and circle down to the city, but say it simply as a trademark or put it reverse if some misunderstanding is still lagging. We go to New York, or Montreal. We do not go to China - Shanghai, or Australia - Sydney. The four fantastic are standing by themselves alone and are magnets for urban adventurers.

Central Park Snowed Out

But among all of these fantastic cities, New York City is a very peculiar city itself. Build around villages, all urban tribes reside in the city. If you prefer roaming around money, the Financial District is for you; if you prefer the trendyness, Williamsburg in Brooklyn is for you; if you prefer X, Y is for you. Each and every urban tribe has a place to draw its boundaries against the others ones, and define it own identity.

Brooklyn Bridge

Spending time in each and every borough of New Yrok City gives you an understanding of what mixity, mixture and mixed could result and influence on each other. No judgments is passed on you because you like of prefer certain things, everything exist and survive if enough people would like to congregate around a common desire. These places are a unique center of exploration and tolerance for self discovery among a group of people.

MoMA

And because everything exist under the sun in a city like New York City, accessible all the time, and a tip of a toe, the city has manage to change and behave like the world is doing, Responding to the rhythm of the world and filling it. Big Apple is in a certain way a mini planet where everything is possible if you spend enough time doing it. It is because specifically everything exists, that people who can handle the megalopolis urban life will end up living into it. New York City is not for everybody, but New York City is everybody.